The Poet Assassinated

Translated from the French by Ron Padgett. "includes Guillaume Apollinaire's best-known work of fiction and fifteen stories selected by Apollinaire himself to accompany it. Never before translated into English, this is the most extensive collection of Apollinaire's fiction available. The autobiographical title story is a provocative novella-a-clef in which Picasso, Max Jacob, Marie Laurencin, and others appear. It follows the writer Croniamantal from conception to assassination and describes his persecution as he proclaims the freedom of poetry. The gigantism, fantasy and farce of this boisterous story recall Rabelais and Jarry. Its vitriol, dialect, and argot, which for too long have deterred translators, are now masterfully rendered by Ron Padgett. The 15 other stories are witty, fanciful, supernatural tales of love and death and the nobility of the human attempt to come to terms with them." Clean text block. Beige jacket in Brodart over white wrappers. 139 pages.